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Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo just announced his second round of administration appointments, and the list includes his first selections to head an agency and authority: The state Health Department and the Dormitory Authority.

Cuomo is not keeping current Health Commissioner Richard Daines, who is one of the few remaining survivors of the Spitzer administration and made a name for himself as the zealous defended of the soda tax.

The governor-elect is replacing Daines with Dr. Nirav R. Shah, a Battery Park City resident who is currently attending physician at Bellevue Hospital Center, associate investigator at the Geisinger Center for Health Research and assistant professor of Medicine in the Section of Value & Comparative Effectiveness at NYU Langone Medical Center.

According to Cuomo’s press release, Shah is a general internist, an “expert in use of systems-based methods to improve patient outcomes, a leading researcher in use of large scale clinical laboratories and electronic health records to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of care, and a nationally recognized thought leader in the very methods needed to transition to the future of lower-cost, more patient-centered, health care for the 21st century.”

Cuomo also wooed a top staffer away from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver: Sabrina M. Ty, who will serve as deputy secretary of legislative affairs.

Ty is currently legislative counsel of the Assembly, responsible for overseeing the development of all major programmatic legislation and directing a team of 90 program and counsel staff in all legislative negotiations.

She also plays a big role in the annual budget negotiations, focusing on education, higher education, economic development, MTA and DOT capital, public authority financing and bonding. Ty has worked with the Assembly since 1995. Her departure is a loss to Silver, who doesn’t have many people in his inner circle.

Cuomo also announced that Paul T. Williams will be recommended to remain as executive director and president of the Dormitory Authority, where he has been since 2008 (at a salary of $195,000; I know that not because it was included in Cuomo’s release – no salary information was – but from an old press release).

Williams came to DASNY from the law firm of Nixon Peabody. He previously worked at Bryan Cave.

I believe Williams and Shah will require Senate confirmation.

Cuomo’s last appointment of the day was Linda Lacewell, who is currently serving as his special counsel in the AG’s office. She will be special assistant to the governor on the second floor.

Prior to joining Cuomo’s team in 2007 as counsel for Economic and Social Justice, she spent nine years prior as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, including two years on detail to the Enron Task Force of the United States Department of Justice.

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